Jay's gone

I will always appreciate Jay's columns that vehemently denounced Michael Vick's monstrously inhumane and evil torture and killing of dogs that were already brutalized by Vick's illegal dogfighting ring.

Did Angelo's recent hissy-fit run him out of town?

Jay is a predictable and mediocre writer.

A few plays on words in the first paragraph, a sideswiping insult, then his main point. Then the body of the article, with Jay's own dubious version of facts, then the inevitable references to Blizzard or Cubdom (or insert another over-used Chicago sports word here), then the last paragraph with some bombastic, over-dramatic conclusion. Then a last-sentence punch line that is supposed to keep you wanting more, more, more Jay.

Boring.

The question now is - what will the Sun-Times do with Jay's page? Fill it with "the best sex of your life!" ads? Let Elliott Harris have it, with bigger pictures of bigger, um, parts? Or will the paper fill it with quality writing from a better writer?

I'm ready to step in.

I'm ready to step in.

Put me in Coach...

Jay, you are today"s news and tomorrows where are they now?

Jay, you are todays news and tomorrows where are they now story

This was on Drudge...

(i dont want to sound like I am cheering for the fall of print newspaper or the CST, cause I am a big fan of reading this paper and I love FCP and all us Blogrowski's, but I tried to warn you guys, that wearing your loonie left leaning politics on your Rags sleeve will be your undoing)...good luck Roman, dont let them take the BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mariotti Abruptly Quits Sun-Times
Star Sports Columnist Says He Wanted Out Before Newspapers Die Out
CHICAGO (CBS) ― In a bombshell announcement in the world of sports journalism, star columnist Jay Mariotti has abruptly resigned from the Chicago Sun-Times.

Mariotti told the Chicago Tribune he decided to quit after covering the Olympics in Beijing because newspapers are in serious trouble, and he did not want to go down with the ship.

"I'm a competitor and I get the sense this marketplace doesn't compete," he said in the Tribune story. "Everyone is hanging on for dear life at both papers.

"To see what has happened in this business. … I don't want to go down with it."

His comments sparked a pointed response from his former employer.

Sun-Times Editor Michael Cooke said in an e-mail to CBS 2: "That's Jay's opinion. He has plenty of them. But the facts, of course, say something different. I'm going with the facts.Well, it's turning nasty ... and that's typical of Jay to throw a bomb on the way out of a place that cared for him, nurtured him, paid him well for 17 years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOEq-ImGWJ0

Ding-dong the witch is dead
Which old witch? The wicked witch!
Ding-dong the wicked witch is dead
Wake up you sleepyhead
Rub your eyes, get out of bed
Wake up the wicked witch is dead
Jay's gone where the goblins go,
Below - Below - Below
Yo-ho, let's open up and sing and ring the bells out.
Ding Dong's the merry-oh, sing it high, sing it low
Let them know the Wicked Witch is dead!

GOOD RIDDANCE!

Now that I think about it some more, I think the way Jay did it was BS. Very un-pro

But, you know me, I dont miss an opportunity to exploite/explore ....ah...whatever.

I cant wait for the Fresh Talent!!

Can you ever not like a guy who is passionate about sports? Yes he ranted with the best of them, but he is bright, articulate and was a reason to read the Sun Times. Good luck Jay, alot of us will be following you to chuckle, learn and have that five minutes of smiling in the morning.....

Jay Mariotti's leaving is bringing much joy and happiness to my day. He was an embarrassment to a quality sports department. I would bet that many Sun-Times staffers as well as most of the Chicago sports teams are happy to see him out of here. Maybe he'll move to New York where they embrace pompous and arrogant know-it-alls!!

He is nothing more than an unprofessional, unknowledgeable, pitiful excuse for a "sportswriter". The real talent of the Sun-Times have just improved by leaps and bounds with his departure. By the way, since saying his name leaves a bad taste in my mouth, he gets nothing but a pronoun. He wasted the Sun-Times' space for 17 years with his "all about me" approach, so he gets no more name time here!

Hey Roman, a suggestion -

Instead of sex advertising, maybe S/T could replace Jay with a point/counterpoint thing. You could start with the FCP bloggers; a perfect duo would be Noles with his facts and statistics v. Culzie with his Teddy Rooseveltian passion for everything, including bad punctuation and grammar.

I like it!

Maybe it was the perfect time for him to bolt. (Besides getting a free trip to China)

The Cubs and Sox are both in first place, Grossman is no longer in the picture and may have played his last game in a Bears uniform, the Bulls got lucky in the draft and even made the right choice with the pick and the Blackhawks are finally causing a buzz again.

Without his usual topics to whine about he would have had to actually say something insightful or heaven forbid.... say something positive about a Chicago sports team or athlete.
Not only was he a dark cloud hanging over every team here but he also acted like the readers had Alzheimer’s based on the way his opinions changed from day to day as if we would never notice.

Who's Jay Mariotti?

I'd like to see Roman have a frequent UFC column at the Sun-Times. The brave fighters mutually agree to engage in combat. Conversely, the animals and birds killed by hunters did not consent to get killed. UFC is a sport-Hunting is an atrocity.

Roman responds: It's called "Fightin' Words," and it's almost every Friday.

I must have died and gone to heaven! We've had a great summer (weatherwise) and to top it off, both Mike North and Jay Mariotti
have improved the air quality in Chicago by leaving.

Bubba's Mom axes: "The question now is - what will the Sun-Times do with Jay's page?"

The same thing that I did with it for years.

Use it to line the bird cage?

Jay's blessed departure poses a question:

Does his exit leave a vaccuum in Chicago sports journalism, or was his column written in one?

The latter would explain the relative weightlessness of his opinions, but brings us to another cunnundrum that would be hard to explain, even using quantum physics:

Since I usually tossed his column into the trash in a motion that was faster than the speed of light, should I not have aged as quickly as everyone else?

I believe the quote goes...

"Todays newspaper is tomorrows, toilet paper"

thats what my old HS coach would always say...

I swear, and I know it will sound like bragging, but its true...my favorite thing in the world in HS was the next day after games...my dad would let me sleep in and call me in LATE...(a.i had PE like my first two classes of the day...so...yes, i was a jock idiot, and so what if I missed a few...we were 55-6 my two years as a starter)....but anyways......my favorite thing was my dad would wake me up by tossing the newspaper onto the foot of my bed so I could read the story of our most recent TROUNCING of some local Chicago area HS team. He would hi light anything to do with my name. He was a good dad.

ok...maybe a little bragging..

I love the paper though...taking the train to work every morning. Nothing like a little SunTimes to make an Hour and 20 mins on the Metra just melt away. The crossword puzzles, the Horoscopes...the Quick Hits...reading who or what Jay was ranting on that day, or which dive Bar Telander was hanging out at in Louisville whilst covering the Derby.

I love the ST paper. This blog is all that is left that connects me to it and if I didnt have so much respect for our 2 chicago papers, but this one in particular....I wouldnt waste so much time on this thing. I also give Roman so much credit for being a part of that paper. I admit, im a fan.

Sucks Jay had to do it the wrong way. He really did spell out exactly what kinda DB he really was.

I still think that the media is suffering for taking a political stand, but thats across the boards.

Another thing my dad would say in tough times was...

Keep your chin up!

B

Mark, did you just say "Axe" the question?
holy smokes...that cracks me up.

By Philtration on August 27, 2008 1:58 PM
Great Post Phil

Bubba's Mom

to borrow keiths phrase..."Im dying laughing right now"

but seriously, lets do it... whats the First topic?

And Mariotti pretended to talk about the "sprit of the competitor", reflect dedication and sacrifice as ingredients for winning, lectured on the nobility of the sportsman, chastised those without loyalty to the fan, respected sport and honored its participants...?

Old story: A man goes to a favorite Chinese restaurant, sits alone at a table and is approached by the proprietor, who asks: "You alone? Where is your wife; such a beautiful lady...so intelligent, so sweet and pleasant...always a smile?

The man answers, "We've divorced."

"Ahh! You better off!", retorts the proprietor.

Mariotti had no qualifications other than being a frustrated little shrimp of a "wannabe" who despised all those who knew he was a "never was".

You better off!

Finally, (and I hope for some kind of "up close and personal" opinion from Roman on this one):

Jay was a totally gutless wimp.

He didn't have the intestinal fortitude to set foot in a locker room, or personally interview any of the countless sports figures that he mercilessly lambasted during his ignominious 17 year career.

He was a total coward.

Mariotti hurled his insults and barbs from a distance, safe within his little cubicle, and never once had to face the ire of those who he so thoroughly disparaged.

I doubt that people like Ozzie, Mike North, or Brian Urlacher would have punched his lights out, but Jay ran from all of them like the little girl that he is.

In the following weeks he'd fling a few more arrows their way.

UNLESS of course they went on a prolonged winning streak.

Then it was, "Never mind!"

He's my poster boy for garbage gutted hypocrites.

Who?

Love him or hate him, JM made you want to read. The SunTimes is a tabloid. Embrace it. Jay fit the bill and helped sell papers. However, the way he left was classless. Just like him. Let Telander go after him this time!

...I can hear the Cherubim and Seriphim rejoicing!

Here on earth, this poster is doing cartwheels and backward summersaults.

Jay Mariotti was excessively annoying in a manner not unlike Howard Cosell. However, I think Cosell was more endearing somehow (Cosell had the ability--at times--to laugh at himself). Jay, ever on an ego trip, was obsessed with the "dark side" of sports as well as people like Jerry Reinsdorf and Ozzie Guillen. How many truly professional and prominent sportwriters get banned from a major league clubhouse as Jay was with the Sox? He couldn't take the "high road" with his enemies there. I think he brought this banishment on himself. In my opinion, Jay was a hypocrite in that he thought he was the messenger to a "high road" audience. As so many former egomaniacs can attest, he often couldn't elevate his own behavior to his own lofty standards.

To his credit, I did find his writing of high quality from purely a language arts perspective. Nevertheless, I must return to my gymnastics. Good riddance Jay Mariotti!

Yo Roman:

This is your domain, so why no rejoiners?

Corporate got your tongue?

Roman responds: I'm thinking about it, but what's the point. What I will say is the reason he left is not because his story on the gold medal hoops game wasn't posted for a couple of hours Sunday morning.

I never liked this guy, it seemed like he would bash his own teams before complementing them.

OMG...now another one of my favorite Chicago "things" is going away. First the death of the Newspaper according to Marriotti and now this...

Last Call for Chicago Bar Cars
Posted 4 hours, 26 minutes ago in US
(Newser) – Chicago’s last commuter-train watering holes will grind to a halt this week, disappointing the tight-knit community of “bar car” regulars, the Tribune reports. The Metra system has been phasing out the traveling taverns in an effort to make more room for passengers, but for many the change feels like the end of a friendlier era, some say.

“We're all upset. It's like cutting off a limb,” says one rider, whose commuting companions organize 90-person excursions to Cubs games at Wrigley Field. Drinking will still be permitted in the cars, but that just won’t be the same—it’s the socializing, not the boozing, that counts. “Some people go to happy hour,” another says. “We go to the bar car.”

I always liked Jay because he did it his way. He didn't care who didnt like it at a time when everybody is a suckup! Man told his story from HIS point of view. Was wrong and right and controversial! So long Jay.

I'm glad he's gone. His style was very negative and all he seemed to ever do was bash chicago teams, coaches and players. Sometimes he made valid points, but mostly just jibber jabber negative bull. His favorite subject of hate spewed articles included, The entire White sox organization, Rex Grossman, and Jerry Angelo. When these people were the topic, you knew there was nothing positive in that article. It got to the point where I just stopped reading his article period. Either he was overly brown nosing people like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Mark Cuban, or he just bashes Chicago Sport figures. So he won't be missed here. I'm glad he's gone.

Good riddance. I'm tired of Mr. Negativity. Sports should be uplifting, not something that brings down everyone and everything.

To borrow a phrase from someone (Spiro Agnew, I believe); Mariotti was a nattering nabob of negativity.

His column reeked of it, and his endless search for that dark and ominous cloud behind the silver lining was a tiresome exercise in futility.

The man was joyless.

I guess the thing that irked me the most about Jay was his penchant for blowing things totally out of proportion, and making Everest sized mountains out of every mole hill. Reading his drivel, one would think that he was chronicling the end of civilization as we know it, when in fact he was writing about perhaps the most inconsequential of societies problems. Edward R. Morrow he was not.
Chicken Little is more like it.

Mariotti was the penultimate fair weather fan. If bandwagon jumping were an Olympic event, he'd be covered in gold from head to toe. But at the first sign of trouble Jay somehow always managed to be the first one off the team bus. He would have made a great politician.

You know, I once thought of Mariotti as a highly skilled, intelligent, articulate man of integrity. Until I heard that after bashing Brian Urlacher for running to the Trib to sell his spin cycle... He went and did the same thing. Jay... at one point, you were a great writer... And now, you might as well retire, because you seem to have lost the key element that I always thought you possessed... You sir, are, in a word.. Gutless. You're a coward, and you should do what cowards do best. Turn around with your tail between your legs.. and run out of town, never to be heard from again.

I'v been waiting on this day like a teen getting his driver license. Like a college freshman first pledge party, Like two newly married virgins on there honeymoon night.... Chicago we have been blessed, set free from a venom sprewing wimp. i was always told a man says what he has to your face and faces what comes with it like a man. to never have set foot in any of our teams club houses was cowardly and unbelievable that he would pass up such a honor. I love the Sun Times Monday thru Sunday front page to the sports section. i have mentally debated with probably all the writers there someway or another, but i never left the colums disliking that reporter as much as i have disliked "The Wimp" that departed.he has roasted, disrepected enough of our sports hero's in chicago for a life time. i send my sympathy to the next city newsroom that hires him. Even for those that deserved some of his roast J-Angelo deserved, Cubs-Owners deserved,and Rex Grossman i'm sure the smile on there face this morning will speak volumes. I can remeber the first day i know the wimp was not a Chicago fan when in his articles he would always find whatever reasons to try to bring down Chicago sports icons..Chicago is a better place today now if we can only get the violence in the city to leave with that wimp we probably could get the 2016 Olympics....I WOULD PERFERD TO HAVE READ THE SUN-TIMES FIRED JAY MARRIOTT but u have to live with what u get wow what a day

Everyone bashing Jay can relax. If you did'nt like his articles then why did you read them and know so much about them. Most of all of us like the daredevil stlye writing that he did. He told the truth most of the time on his views weather you agreed or not. I'm a Cubs fan and I always thought he was a little off but I still read because he wrote what he felt. Let's get Steve Stone back then. He did the same and unlike Jay was right 99% of the time.

Marriotti made Mike North look like a Rhodes Scholar.